NBA – Let’s Make it Better

Let’s bring excitement back to the NBA!

For starters let’s get radical and turn the 30 team league into three 16 team leagues:

In the top level league you get the best teams playing each other more often. The NBA on TV suddenly gets a lot better.

Each league sends 8 teams to the playoffs. Playoff series are shortened to best of three for all but the championship series which becomes best of 5 games.

The championship winner of the lowest league gains entry into the mid-level league the following season.

The championship winner of the mid-level league gains entry to the top level league the following season.

Losing should Suck!

Since the championship winner of the mid-level league climbs up, the worse team in the top-level league gets dropped down to the mid-level league for the following season. And the worse team in the mid-level team gets dropped down to the low-level league. It’s going to create happy chaos watching the teams with the worse records play their hearts out to keep from being the worse team.

Scheduling:

Top-level league teams play each other two times each, mid-level teams a total of 24 games and low-level teams 8 games for a grand total of 62 games.

Mid-level teams play each other two times, top-level teams a total of 24 games and lower-level teams 8 games for a grand total of 62 games.

Lower-level teams play each other two times, mid-level teams 8 games and top-level teams 8 games for a grand total of 46 games.

With 18 extra markets the NBA gains far more exposure on the “local” level.

With three leagues you could stage the start and stop of each league to allow for more basketball throughout the year. Why give baseball free reign during the summer? Summer would be the perfect time to start the lower level league. Then start the mid-level league closer to fall and finally start the top level league in the winter.

Draft:

I’d keep the draft in place but allow it to play out like this: 48 picks

A 16 team lottery from the top league determines picks 1-16. Every team has equal chance for the top pick!

A 16 team lottery from the second tier league determines picks 17-32. Again the odds are spread evenly among the group.

And same situation plays out for the sixteen teams of the lower league finishing out picks 33-48.

We don’t need more than 48 picks. If a draft eligible player is not picked by pick 48 he can either try again next year or sign a free agent contract with any of the teams.

Free Agency, Trades, Salary Cap & Guaranteed Contracts:

When players become free agents they can sign with any team from any league.

Teams can trade players with teams within their league and also in any of the other leagues.

Eliminate the salary cap and allow for big markets like New York City to finally buy their way to wins. And frankly they need this advantage. It’s not helping the league at all when small markets like San Antonio dominate the league. Let the big markets have a financial advantage. The small market teams will still find a way to compete – maybe not every year but often enough that it keeps it interesting.

Take away guaranteed contracts. It’s not helping the best players. They will get paid regardless of whether a contract is guaranteed or not. The reality is the only players who benefit from guaranteed contracts are injured players, underperforming players or players who have off court issues. If teams could cancel contracts when they want they would pass the money saved onto better players. It’s how economics works. And for players who are worried about injuries costing them money they already have the ability to buy insurance to protect themselves from losing money in case of injury.

NO MORE TIMEOUTS IN LAST 5 MINUTES!

Watching the end of an NBA game truly sucks.All of the stop in action is just ridiculous.I’m sorry but I just don’t have the time or patience for it.Take away the timeouts and make teams figure out how to win games without a scratchboard.

So there ya go. A lot of different ways the NBA could have a substantially better product.

NBA – Let’s Make it Better was last modified: December 14th, 2016 by admin